[tstrimple]

This has happened. IIRC it was a Stanford statistitian who watched the distribution pattern for winning tickets for a certain scratch off game in Texas. She bought all of that ticket from that particular store and won $10M. I think that was her fourth scratch off win.

[throwaway2037]

I found a bunch of stories by Googling for:

    Stanford statistitian texas scratch loto

Wiki page is strangely poor, and does not even mention her Stanford PhD in stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_R._Ginther